In the Footsteps of Richard Wagner: Zürich

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In the Footsteps of Richard Wagner: Zürich Part One: An Explosion of Ideas Wednesday, July 24, 2013-11:00 AM By Fred Plotkin Zurich, Switzerland (Fred Plotkin) The story of Richard Wagner can be told

1 In the Footsteps of Richard Wagner: Zürich Part One: An Explosion of Ideas Wednesday, July 24, :00 AM By Fred Plotkin Zurich, Switzerland (Fred Plotkin) The story of Richard Wagner can be told in so many ways: genius, controversialist, rebel, narcissist and so much more. My approach in this, the year of the bicentennial of Wagner s birth, has been to walk in his footsteps to learn about him by visiting places important to his formation and creativity. First came Leipzig, where he was born and later studied. Then there was Dresden, where he lived as a boy and returned to for his early work. It was from Dresden that he fled with his wife Minna after participating in revolutionary activities in May To mark the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth, WQXR offers a week of music and commentary on his life and works.

2 Wagner intended to go to Paris, whose Opéra paid very well and had the latest in stage technology. First the Wagners went over the border from the German lands into Switzerland, where a friend helped him secure a Swiss passport. He went on to Paris but quickly decided that it was not the place for him at that time. He returned to Zürich in July This was his base for nine years, until 1858, when he moved to Lucerne. I will describe his time there in a future article. Zürich was different in so many ways from what he knew before. Dresden was a royal city with court orchestras and commissions for talented musicians, who performed at the pleasure of those who would pay them. In contrast, Zürich was a city of merchants and tradesmen for whom culture was not about the glorification of its patrons. The city had communities of foreigners, including Jews, and was less oriented toward emphasizing national characteristics in the way that Wagner did with his vaunted notion of German-ness, whatever we take that to mean. One expression of this was his admiration of the guilds of Zürich, those confraternities of artisans engaged in various crafts and professions. A tradition took place each year in early spring in which the guilds gathered on the large square where the Zürich Opera House now sits. There, they would burn old winter wood and detritus in a festive ceremony that inspired the third act of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Birthplace of Notorious Essays Zürich became a place where Wagner could reflect upon, and amplify, his ideas and theories. Most of the famous and notorious essays for which he is known were written in Zürich. These include Die Kunst und die Revolution ( Art and Revolution ) [and] Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft ( The Art of the Future ) [ ] published under a pseudonym Oper und Drama ( Opera and Drama ); and Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde ( A Communication to My Friends ). He also wrote most of the libretto of the four operas that are Der Ring des Nibelungen. These were published privately in 1853.

3 In Zürich, Wagner composed the music to Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, and sketches for Siegfried and Parsifal. This is remarkable given the size and scope of these operas, not to mention the fact that he was writing essays, librettos, and was deeply engaged in correspondence that is now part of the reason we know so much about the details of his life. In addition to all of this, Wagner wrote the libretto and some of the music for Tristan und Isolde. A Communication to My Friends deserves to be read to get some sense of his wide-ranging mind and self-aggrandizing penchant for constructing and polishing the myth that he wanted to be perceived as. Wagner, who was so steeped in the study of Greek, Germanic and Norse mythology, surely came to believe that a big part of his currency as an artist was not only his ideas and music but the fashioning of himself as a mythical figure. This long essay is fascinating for its wide-ranging brilliance, odious for its clear disdain of Jews, and notable for his insistence that he not be thought of as a genius even as he puts that premise before his readers so that they could emphatically disagree. Wagner's refusal to be called a genius is about as persuasive as a Kennedy, Bush or Clinton saying that they will not run for office. It was in Zürich, a city that attracted free thinkers of all kinds, that Wagner first encountered Buddhism among a circle of acquaintances interested in the works of Schopenhauer. In 1855, Wagner wrote a draft for an opera called Die Sieger (The Victors) inspired by this study. He did not develop it further but Buddhism s ideas remained a current in his thought for the rest of his life. Similarly, it was likely that Wagner s first encounter with vegetarianism, a practice he engaged in for a while, came in Zürich, which has always been Europe s foremost city for people who choose not to eat animal products. Between 1850 and 1855, the composer raised money he was always short of funds because he spent outrageous amounts on luxury items for himself in a series of now-legendary concerts of music from his operas as well as of Beethoven and Mozart. This made him a prominent figure in the city and brought him patrons and devoted followers. It was the beginning of the mythification of Richard Wagner. He also led full opera performances of Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte, Fidelio, Dame Blanche, Der Freischütz and Norma. He led the first Zürich performances of Der fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser. In so doing, he made the city a place that would claim Wagnerian primacy long after he was gone.

The concerts he did in May 1853 were famous because they were organized as Wagner Festivals. As such, they implanted in his head the idea of a permanent Wagner festival with why not?

4 The concerts he did in May 1853 were famous because they were organized as Wagner Festivals. As such, they implanted in his head the idea of a permanent Wagner festival with why not? its own theater and shrine to the composer. This, of course, would become, in 1876, the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Germany. They also were the beginnings of the Zürich Festival, a major series of performances of old and new works held in the city from late June to mid-july each year. Wagner became famous in Zürich not only for his conducting but for speaking. He organized readings, usually done by him, of libretti such as Tannhäuser, Der fliegende Holländer,Lohengrin and the first public hearing of the text of the four Ring operas. He also read Oper und Drama aloud and promoted discussion of his ideas. Wagner's Stomping Grounds In my recent stay in Zürich I had two wonderful opportunities to learn about Wagner in the city. One was to walk around the town center, looking at buildings where Wagner lived and worked, with Eva Martina Hanke. She is the local authority on Wagner in Zürich and has co-written the guidebook on the subject. It will receive an English language edition in September with the title Richard Wagner s Zürich. The publisher is Stroemfeld. Her website is a valuable resource for further exploration. If you visit Zürich, you can stop briefly at the Weinplatz 10, site of the Hotel Schwert until It was Zürich s best hotel and Wagner s first address in town. Then he rented rooms at Oetenbachgasse 7 before occupying three flats (at Steinwiesstrasse 3, Zeltweg 11 and Zeltweg 13) at what are known as the Escher Houses. Much of the Ring Cycle was written there. Down the street from the Escher Houses, and not to miss, is a stupendous exhibition at thekunsthaus, the city s main art museum, called Valkyries Over Zürich: 150 Years of Wagner Performances in Zürich. It is on view until August 18 and is worth the detour if you are anywhere in central Europe. One can see photographs, drawings and models of costumes and scenery that fire the imagination. The styles range

5 from romantic realism to stark modernism, but all offer persuasive ideas for how Wagner s operas can be staged. Along with the remarkably fertile creativity of his Zürich years, Wagner had numerous tempestuous relationships. His marriage to Minna foundered and he became, in different ways, deeply involved with Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck. The former was Wagner s most generous patron. The latter was his most passionate muse. More on Wagner and the Wesendoncks in an upcoming article In the Footsteps of Richard Wagner: Zürich (Part II) A Tumultuous Life With The Wesendoncks Friday, July 26, :29 AM By Fred Plotkin Die Villa Wesendonck in Zürich (Wikipedia Commons) In my previous article about Richard Wagner's nine-year stay in Zürich, Switzerland, I devoted most of my words to the places he frequented, the music he wrote and the performances he gave. I felt that an entire

6 article would be required to describe his relationship with his most important financial backer, Otto Wesendonck ( ) and Otto s young, beautiful and soulful wife, Mathilde ( ), who became Wagner s most important muse in this period and, perhaps, in his whole life. To mark the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth, WQXR offers a week of music and commentary on his life and works. Otto Wesendonck was German and, like Wagner, professed opposition to monarchy and royalty. Unlike Wagner, Wesendonck was able in finance and had considerable monetary resources. He was from Wuppertal, lived in Dusseldorf from 1848 to 1850 and then moved to New York, where he expanded his successful silk business. He returned to Europe in 1851, choosing Zürich, where Wagner had already lived for two years. Otto and his young wife Mathilde came to know Richard and Minna Wagner at the Hotel Baur au Lac, still one of the most exclusive in town. The Wesendoncks lived in the hotel from 1852 to 1857 while their villa was being built just outside of Zürich (and now well within the city limits). Part of what solidified the bond between the two couples was that, in 1852, Otto gave Wagner a large loan and continued to show unstinting generosity to him for years to come. We know that, by 1853, Wagner had developed powerful romantic feelings for Mathilde and that she had similarly passionate sentiments toward him. There is some question as to whether this intense love between Wagner and Mathilde ever became sexual. The popular interpretation is that it was not consummated because so much of the music Wagner created while under the spell of this attraction is about the impossibility of two lovers achieving coital congress. It is interesting that Wagner composed the extraordinarily erotic first act of Die Walküre in 1854 in one of his Zürich apartments during his infatuation with Mathilde. The story is of two people Siegmund and Sieglinde who meet and whose sexual attraction is so intense that they do indeed have wild passionate sex, even if they happen to be brother and sister! In the summer of 1857, Otto generously offered the Wagners an Asyl, a country house, on the Grüner Hügel (the Green Hill) close by the Wesendoncks s villa. The rent was negligible but, even at that, Wagner did not faithfully pay it. To Wagner, this house was not an asylum, as English speakers might imagine, but

7 a haven where he would live and work for 16 months. Sadly, the building no longer exists, and another structure stands in its place. Otto, even when he endured financial reversals, nonetheless kept providing financial support to Wagner, who was profligate in his expenditures. This frustrated Otto and was regarded negatively by people in Zürich. Elmar Weingarten, who heads the Zürich Festival, explained to me how grating Wagner s behavior was to the Swiss. Unlike the Germans, he said, the Swiss don t spend money they don t have. The Germans spend, which is good for the arts but not for the financial future." This observation may strike many readers as strange given that our received wisdom about most Germans is that they are not big spenders. Wagner, conversely, was a world-class spender of other people s money. In September of 1857, a remarkable evening took place at the Wesendonck villa. There were the Wesendoncks, the Wagners and, on their honeymoon, the conductor Hans von Bülow and his 19-year-old bride Cosima, daughter of Franz Liszt. Therefore, at the table that night were Wagner s wife, the woman who was his muse (and whose husband was his patron) and a conductor who would be one of his closest collaborators and the woman (Cosima) by whom he would father two children while she was still married to her first husband. His powerful feelings for Mathilde, which she returned in kind, were the inspiration for the libretto of Tristan und Isolde, which he had written in two months. Each night, Wagner read what he had written to Mathilde. He read the entire libretto to all present at that famous September dinner. Soon after, Wagner stopped composing Siegfried and, on October 1, 1857, began writing the music of Tristan und Isolde. The opera had its first performance in Munich on June 10, By that time, Richard Wagner and Cosima Liszt von Bülow were a couple and parents of an infant daughter named Isolde. None other than Hans von Bülow, still married to Cosima, conducted the premiere. While working on the opera, Wagner also set five poems by Mathilde to music that are, in their way, also sketches for Tristan und Isolde. The five songs commonly referred to as the Wesendonck Lieder are known in German as Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme (Five Poems for a Female Voice). The songs are performed, in almost every case, by a woman, and are seen as representing a particularly feminine sensibility.

8 Here are the texts, which you should read as you listen to performances of the songs. The music to the songs will bring to mind motives from the Ring and, especially, Tristan und Isolde, on which he was at work. The songs most connected to Tristan und Isolde are the third, Im Treibhaus, and the fifth, "Träume." Among the most renowned interpreters of the songs were Kirsten Flagstad, Eileen Farrell and, currently, Nina Stemme. I also very much like how Régine Crespin sang them and I encourage you to locate her complete performance of them. Watch a very fine version by Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne-Sofie von Otter who, I believe, captures not only the emotions of the songs but brings a profound womanliness to them: They were recently recorded by tenor Jonas Kaufmann who, in a video makes a persuasive case for a man singing them too. In addition to carefully studying the text even before going to the music (as any serious recitalist must do), Kaufmann said he felt that Wagner identified with the emotions in the words, especially in the song Im Treibhaus, in which the composer found expression of his homesickness for Germany even while living in a rather comfortable way with the Wesendoncks. Listen to Kaufmann sing all five songs. At seven in the morning on December 23, 1857, Wagner placed musicians he had hired (with Otto s money, of course) on the staircase of the villa. They played Träume (Dreams) to gently awaken Mathilde on her 29th birthday. Minna served bread, butter and coffee. Otto was in New York, trying to reverse serious setbacks in his business there. When he learned of Wagner s extravagant and effusive gesture, he was quite angry. To put things right, Wagner organized another staircase concert on March 21, 1858 that featured 10 movements from six Beethoven symphonies. He used an ivory baton designed by architect Gottfried Semper (most famous for the gorgeous opera house in Dresden). Mathilde paid for the baton, which was part of the collection at Bayreuth until it disappeared during World War II. Tension on the Green Hill became unbearable as Wagner became ever more overt in his feelings for Mathilde, causing a rupture in the relationship between the families. Wagner was obliged to leave the Asyl. He sent Minna to a spa in Brestenburg and, on August 17, 1858, he went to Venice for a while,

9 though he would return to Switzerland specifically, to Lucerne and began another crucial phase in his creative and personal life (with Cosima) that will be the subject of a forthcoming article in this series. Remarkably, Wagner maintained his relationships with Otto, who continued to provide funds, and Mathilde, who was a devoted correspondent with the itinerant composer. The Wesendoncks sold their Zürich villa and property on the Green Hill in 1871 and moved to the new, united republic of Germany. Since 1952, the villa has been the Rietberg Museum, an important collection of art from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas. But, on a long sunny afternoon on that hill, one can still hear the faint echoes of love music written during Richard Wagner s life-changing sojourn in Zürich.

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